


—and that tall grass grows high and brown

by pearthery



Category: Gintama
Genre: (the shoka sonjuku my neighbour totoro au), Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, shoka sonjuku week 2021
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-27 08:28:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30119988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearthery/pseuds/pearthery
Summary: Gintoki's not a spellcaster.If he was, he'd be great at it, obviously. He'd be the kind of spellcaster that everybody tells stories about, fairy tales, and in each one he'd be the hero, marching across the world and getting heaps and heaps of presents wherever he goes—sweets, he thinks, most definitely, and sugary drinks, and cake, and chocolate, all of the desserts he could ever want and dream of, and he has dreamed of them—he'd be, you know, a really good one.If he wanted to, of course. Not that he does.It starts with this: a small cave in the midst of the forest, the entrance covered with hanging vines. A boy stepping into a village.
Relationships: Katsura Kotarou & Sakata Gintoki & Takasugi Shinsuke, Sakata Gintoki & Imai Nobume, Sakata Gintoki & Yoshida Shouyou
Comments: 16
Kudos: 19





	1. prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's not shouka sonjuku week yet, but i'm warming up for it! so here's the prologue, whoohoo! (the title comes from the stable song by gregory alan isakov!!)

Do you think it's hard to build a nest? 

That is—it's a lot of work, isn't it? So much effort goes into one. Twigs that are carefully arranged, the painstakingly selected location, the specific positioning between branches. 

If I were a bird, I think it would be hard. I think it might be the hardest thing I would ever do. Imagine being so small and helpless, having to build yourself a home out of things so tiny they hardly matter—that's what twigs are. It's easy to step over them. 

...Are you alright, sensei?

...Oh. It is very late. Should I put the fire out? No, no, I can do it. You should take a nap. We still have a long way to go, don't we? 

I'm not tired, don't worry. I've pushed myself harder than this. Ah, I know. But I've had a long time to rest since then. I can stay awake for a while longer. It's alright… you seem tired. 

We have some time before the sunrise. Go to sleep, sensei.


	2. chores

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay it's definitely not shouka sonjuku week yet, but i think i will indulge myself a little bit and not leave this hanging at the prologue!! so here is the first chapter, yay!!!

The old man at the counter's snoring so hard that Gintoki thinks he can feel it in his bones. It's this deep, thunderous rumble that shakes the floorboards and the glass bottles on the shelves, and Gintoki's not scared of many things at all, but he's actually kinda, well, not scared, duh, but _apprehensive_ , that's the word—he's kinda apprehensive of the way that the ceiling seems to tremble. 

Who the hell even snores so loud? This guy can't be human, right? Gintoki looks at the plump, bearded figure pouring off his armchair. Ahaha, this guy can't be human. That's impossible. Humans can't possibly snore that loud. Their lungs would explode. He's probably a dwarf. But a big one. A big dwarf. Yeah, that's it. That's why he snores like a volcanic eruption. 

Volcanic eruptions are—not scary—but, you know, things to be _apprehensive_ of. Gintoki thinks this guy might be a pretty similar case. Kinda like, _ggrrrrrr_ and _humpghrph!_ and _graarGh!_ and then hot, fluid substances flying all over the place. That kind of thing.

Especially when he wakes up and finds Gintoki in his musty little shop, sticking his grubby hands all over the very big bowl of very nice-looking chocolates that he's very nicely put right up at the front counter, where Gintoki can stand on his tip-toes and stuff them all into his pockets. That would probably turn him red-hot. 

On Gintoki's part, it's pretty unrealistic to expect him _not_ to pay attention when he sees readily available, delectable sweets sitting out in the open for anyone to show their love and appreciation for (as they very well should—sweets exist to be adored and revered), so really, he's not to blame at all. 

Not for the way that he accidentally knocks the entire bowl over, nor the way that the big old dwarf guy startles awake and starts choking on his saliva (or his mustache, it's really hard to tell) and he's definitely not to blame at all for the painful way that the door slams into the outside wall as he dashes away, making his cool and grand exit and bumping his shin on the front step.

He hears a couple of kids mutter something as he sprints past them—something about "ah, Takasugi, did he just steal Aoki-san's chocolates?"—and it's totally a lie, because he didn't—actually, the chocolates stole _him_ — but Gintoki's too busy cursing his way over the top of the fence to correct their absolutely incorrect assumptions, and also glaring at the bastard in nice clothes who's giving him a wholly undeserved judgemental stare. 

Gintoki sticks his tongue out at him as he scrambles over the top of the fence. It's his patented most annoying face. He slides down the other side too fast to see the other boy's response, but he's pretty sure he hears some outraged yelp, so it's basically his personal victory. The grin on his face comes almost of its own will.

For a moment, Gintoki basks in his triumph. And then he trots off into the forest with his hard-earned prize. 

°°°

He left his sword leaning on a tree nearby, and Gintoki's very pleased to see it exactly where he left it, having moved not an inch, though not surprised, since very few people come down this way. 

Or, well, as far as he knows. He hasn't been in this village very long. A few weeks, he thinks. It's always a possibility that this overgrown path might be used for super-duper special and once-in-a-blue-moon ceremonies, with hundreds of people trailing down the path in a divinely-inspired procession, or maybe as a clandestine meeting place for lovers to unite in secret, or, you know, as a dumping ground for serial killers. 

He picks his sword up and ties it up at his side with a threadbare cloth, where it hangs awkwardly and drags, just a little, through the dirt. Gintoki leaves it be.

"A good haul for Gin-san this time!" he crows happily to himself. "Wow, what a good job, Gin-san! No one even came close to catching you this time!" 

Not that anyone ever has, though. Gintoki's very elusive. Ghost-like. He's like mist, fading quickly into the treeline, becoming fainter and fainter until it's like he was never really there. Well, at least that's what that one old hag told him. "A ghost should settle eventually," she'd said, her face unreadable. And then it twisted into outrage when Gintoki had said, "that's a lie—your ugly face is gonna haunt me forever," and after that, Gintoki can't remember what she said at all because she'd hit him so hard and boxed his ears. 

He rubs his scalp at the memory. It aches vaguely.

"Don't piss off old hags," Gintoki says to the bird perched nearby, gravely imparting his lived wisdom. "They hit really hard." 

Caw, says the bird. It looks at him with a blank, dull expression, which Gintoki supposes is a mirror of his own, so it's probably a form of karma when he finds the unsettled feeling uncurling in the back of his head. Caw, it repeats again. Looking closer, its beak is shiny and wet. When the gleaming droplet rolls off, it lands with a plop in the grass, bright red against the yellowed green. 

Gintoki pops a chocolate in his mouth. It tastes fantastic. Warm and sweet and creamy. Ahh, it's been a while since he's eaten something like this. 

"Do you think I should go back?" he asks the crow. "He had some cool-looking bottles too. Prolly medicine. I could sell those and get super-rich really quickly, and then retire and buy a whole sweets shop." 

Caw, says the crow. Gintoki scowls at it. 

"Hey!" he points, with a great deal of affront. "What's wrong with that?" 

The crow stretches its wings. It makes that low, almost 'babbling' noise that young crows often make and tilts its head at Gintoki, cocking a beady eye. 

It's really a lie, what he'd said before. About the medicine, and the selling, and the sweets shop. Really, it'd be likeliest that Gintoki would use up the bottles himself, sipping at them to heal his cuts and bruises, smearing the paste on his scratches and wrinkling his nose at the herbal smell. Even the bandages he saw on the dusty wooden shelves he'd probably end up using to wrap his ankle—which was healing well—but needed a little support, or else he'd end up rolling it again. 

So, yes, it's a lie. But still—

"You suck," Gintoki says. Click, click, says the crow. 

It meets his cross gaze squarely and watches him stuff five chocolates in his mouth until his cheeks bulge. Batting its wings, it chatters one last time, and then flits off into the canopy. Gintoki makes a face, and though it obviously can't see him, he makes it all the same.

°°°

The evening finds Gintoki trudging through the forest. He'd fallen asleep earlier in a clearing, and was so comfortable that he didn't wake up, and even worse, no one had the courtesy of coming up to him and saying, shaking him at the shoulder, "gee, Gin-san, it's getting real late! You should go home before it gets dark and you trip over the tree roots again!" 

Instead, Gintoki was left lounging around under a wide, shady fig tree like unwanted innards, and now he has to make his way through the forest in the dark, which—despite his excellent night vision, and superb sense of direction, and his overall winning personality—really, very much sucks. 

He thinks he might have rolled his ankle again. He thinks he might have rolled the other one too. He thinks he might have rolled his whole head round a full 360° degrees from having swivelled his neck back and forth so much, and his throat feels terribly and unpleasantly sore from having sung so many bawdy tavern songs at the top of his lungs. 

The forest at night isn't quiet, and that's his saving grace. He doesn't have to sing bawdy tavern songs to ward off the bad spirits when all the crickets are conducting their own romantic opera shows and the frogs are serenading all their lovers, and in that way, it's comforting. 

It's not dark, either, not when the moon is overhead, its pale light sweeping gently over the ferns and the ridged surface of the tree trunks. 

It's just—lonely. 

When he shuffles past the small cave, Gintoki thinks it looks a little lonely too. Its entrance is covered up by climbing vines, hanging over the brim like a curtain. It looks velveteen in the dim light. 

There's a big storm coming soon. Looks to be a strong one—hard rain and fast winds, and cold, cold air. The birds are already preparing. The centipedes are glossy on the rockface. Gintoki's rickety borrowed hut isn't nearly strong enough to stand that kind of weather. It would be good to find other shelter. 

Gintoki makes a note in the back of his head to check it out later. Tomorrow, maybe. Tomorrow would be good. He shakes himself out of thought and keeps walking. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gintoki's daily routine is being a brat and little gremlin child!!! whoa!


	3. fairy tale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoohoo! a second chapter!!! yay! this is, ahaha, it's become less of a totoro au and more of a howl's moving castle au, and yet, it's very little of both, and mostly, it's just its own sort of world unravelling

The next day is colder. 

It's something about the air, he thinks. It's sharper, more cutting: pointed claws digging into his curve of his cheek the same way you would bite into a peach and lick away the dripping juice. 

It's not raining yet. Cold, but not yet raining. Instead, the sky is grey and swollen, and Gintoki is swaddled in the corner of his ramshackle shelter, in the soft, heavy cloak he'd squandered the final crumbs of his money on in the last village he'd been to. 

He wraps the fabric over the top of his head and around his mouth, tugs it up over his nose so that it stops stinging. He's still cold. 

When he finally drags himself out of bed, he checks his food stash. It's a whopping half-a-metre away from his bedside and comprises of bread and a couple bruised fruits, some of which have been smelling very sickly sweet lately, so he should probably eat them soon. It's not the most wealthy Gintoki has been, but he thinks he's safe for a few days. He leaves his sword leaning against the wall.

It warms up over the next few hours, the heat inching up and up in increments. Gintoki spends these hours trundling around the woods with his cloak wrapped around his shoulders and a chunk of bread in his pocket for when he gets hungry, and actually, he has a few of the chocolates from yesterday remaining, squirrelled away, so technically, he _could_ eat those too, but he's saving those for a special occasion. 

If he wins the lottery, for example! Always a possibility, and some things are more likely than you'd think them to be, you know. 

"Kid," says the man in front of him. "I don't have a single idea what you're talking about." 

"Hah?" Gintoki squints. "Weren't ya listening? It's rude not to pay attention when someone's talking—didn't your mother teach you any better?"

"I—"

"Fine, fine. You're lucky I'm so generous. Gin-san can explain it all agai—hey! Where're you going?"

The man gives him an apologetic look as he sprints rapidly away, which doesn't fix anything, and definitely doesn't absolve of all his sins, but he does look very very sorry, and even more contrite as he gets scolded by the other guy he was with before he stopped to talk with Gintoki about important things like the lottery, so it makes things slightly better than they were before.

Of course, it's mostly because Gintoki's kind and generous and forgiving, but some credit can be owed to people who know how to apologise properly. 

Gintoki stretches his arms up against the tree he's leaning on and tilts his head back. 

The road lies before him, dust-brown and gravelly. People keep walking back and forth, in and out of the village gates, shaded by the trees around. 

Gintoki watches the carts and wagons most of all—they're these simple things, wooden platforms hitched up on four big wheels carrying building stone, or straw, or piles of fruit in large crates, driven mostly by oxen. Sometimes, though, a small, two-wheeled dray might come rattling down the road, pulled by some straight-faced man.

There's even the rare horse, carrying people in fine, prisitine clothing in fine, painted carts. Gintoki likes to watch these ones, not because he is enchanted by them, but more because he likes to look at their sour faces as they clatter over the gravel road. 

The people in these carts are rich and dignified, and their faces are so long that sometimes they even match their horses. 

Gintoki mutters this snidely to the songbird in the branches high above him. Chirp, it says. 

  
°°°

There's some weird demonstration being held in the middle of the village when he walks back through. They have a funky set-up. All these black scribbles scratched into the dirt, and funny-smelling stands with incense sticks and aesthetic earthenware and dried herbs hanging up on poles, and an arena and everything. 

At least, Gintoki thinks it's an arena.

Really, it's a big circle outlined in white, and there are people sitting and standing around on the sidelines as if they're waiting for something to happen. And something sure does happen, because these two kids step out into the circle in matching billowy shirts and everyone starts clapping. 

" _Whoo! Whoo!_ " says Gintoki. "What're they even cheering for, huh? Nothing's happening. This is lame." 

He bites his tongue as one of the kids—long-haired and straight-faced—says something, an incantation, but the crowd is too loud for Gintoki to properly hear. The boy swipes his arm quick through the air. 

His bright blue spell flies faster than any Gintoki's seen before. 

  
°°°

Gintoki's not a spellcaster. 

If he was, he'd be great at it, obviously. He'd be the kind of spellcaster that everybody tells stories about, fairy tales, and in each one he'd be the hero, marching across the world and getting heaps and heaps of presents wherever he goes—sweets, he thinks, most definitely, and sugary drinks, and cake, and chocolate, all of the desserts he could ever want and dream of, and he has dreamed of them—he'd be, you know, a really good one. 

If he wanted to, of course. Not that he does. 

It takes years of training to learn how to control your magic, and years more of mastering it to be called a caster. And years and years more to be called a summoner, or seer, or whatever other thing you'd specialise in. Training, and bloodline too. 

Gintoki's not a spellcaster. But he doesn't want to be. He's not interested in these sorts of things anyway. 

Everyone else can go all, _wow Katsura-san's got such amazing control over his magic_ and _it's incredible how skilled he is at such a young age_ and _Takasugi-san's power is more intense than I've heard, how old did you say he was again?_ but Gintoki's not into that sort of gossip, you know, he's always been more of a 2D sort of guy than 3D, so fanboying over 3D people isn't his style. 

He still stays until the end. 

°°°

When the match finishes, the first boy, the one with long hair, tied up in a ponytail, blushes and bows deeply to his peers and adults who congratulate him. He steps out of the circle neatly, sweeping his hair out of his face, panting hard.

His billowy white shirt is drenched through with sweat and his mouth looks dry, his nose red. Makes sense, Gintoki thinks, since he'd been spitting out incantation after incantation, so fast that the words seemed to blend together into incoherent hisses, interspersed throughout with the clicking of velar stops. 

He seems thirsty, but he's too polite to tell everyone buzzing round him to buzz off. His smile gets a little more desperate with each clap on the back.

The other boy, short-haired and kind of scowly, he makes his way like a shadow, straightening his back. He's breathing deeply, exhaling even slower, and in the cold air his breath puffs out in steams. 

It looks like he might have given himself a side stitch while throwing himself around in the dirt. Well, he was dodging, actually. But it could have been both. Maybe his rolling around doubled as dodging. He sure looked feverish. Had lost anyway.

Scowly kid walks up to an equally scowly man who clamps a pale hand down on his shoulder and leads him away. His back straightens, spine locking stiffly into place.

The match is over. Gintoki lingers. And then he leaves.

  
°°°

It's a cold day. Gintoki keeps strolling around the village, where it's warm and bright and sometimes people leave their baking on their window-sills to cool down and if he's fast enough, he can snatch a loaf or two and scamper away. 

But housewives are actually super scary, so he decides against it for the time being. Instead, he entertains himself counting the tall, looming lamp-lights standing in rows along the street; they've been lit magically, he thinks, burning an intangible, invisible fuel down to its nonexistent bones.

He finds the school, or academy, or whatever they want to call themselves, on his second loop around the village, on a quaint, quiet little street where the birds look like they want to tell him to fuck off. 

It's got a red roof and lots of windows, and Gintoki walks right up the side of the wall, to one of the classrooms, and stands on his toes, straining until he can peer inside. 

It's empty, of people and of cool things. Like, there are books on top of books on top of books, which are the sorts of things that nerds like, and not Gintoki, and there are chairs and tables and chairs, which look neat and tidy, but Gintoki's sure if he sat on one of them, his butt would very quickly die. 

There's a tiny, almost pathetic-looking potions stand propped up on one of the counters against the wall and up near the front, diagrams of herbs, labelling each useful part. 

He recognises a lot of them—the one with the long, slender stem and spiky head, he's seen out in the fields, and the small pale flowers, he knows that they grow near the cave he saw the day before. Another leaf: that one's good for stomach aches. 

There's a poster on the wall that says something that Gintoki can't read. He sinks back down and spins, groaning with exasperation.

"Okay!" he says, sticking his hands up. "I'm going now! Urgh, I got it the first time, you don't have to nag me." 

One of the doves nearby coos again, an accusatory sound. Brrroo, brroo. A chorus of 'brroo brroo' follows quickly after, each coo layering over another until it becomes a cacophany. Gintoki is harried all the way down the street until he turns the corner, his hands clamped over his ears. 

The crow joins him soon after, alighting on a stout brick wall. Its feathers are starkly contrasted, dark against the pale stone. 

"How was your date?" Gintoki asks it. "Or your spy mission—whatever it was. Didja bring me something? Maybe a diamond, or a magic sword, or one of those chocolate truffle things that I've heard about—they're supposed to taste really good. If you did, I'll definitely forgive you for ditching me."

Caw, says the crow. Click, click. 

"Oi," Gintoki frowns. "But that's _my_ bread."

The crow hops onto his shoulder and nips his ear. It leans forward, meeting his gaze with its own eyes, the irises a shade of young chestnut, the pupil a bright, gleaming black. 

Gintoki reaches up with his left hand and sticks his pinky up his nose. The other slips silently into his pocket and re-emerges with a chunk of bread. He holds it up, looking steadfastly at the side of the street as the crow snaps happily away. 

"You'd better leave some for me," he says. 

°°°

Its name is Nobume. The crow, that is. 

Funny name for a crow, but the guy had been insistent that Gintoki call it Nobume and that its favourite food was donuts. His own name, if Gintoki remembers right, was Sakaki, or something along those lines. 

"Take Nobume with you," Old Man Sakaki had said, with his ominously shadowed cheekbones (looking like an NPC or something). "The both of you can keep each other company. Also, Nobume likes donuts." 

"Oi, oi, oi!" Gintoki had replied, not quite as ominous, but far more passionately, and passion is what really matters in this cold, hard world, and passion is the most especially admired characteristic in any heroic character, because people like the catharsis of watching other people speak deeply—and passionately!—from the heart, as Gintoki did, so really, his own delivery of his lines was way more impressive than Old Man Sakaki's.

"Whoddya think you are, trying to foist off your responsibilities on me, huh? Take your crow back! Hey! Hey! Take it back!"

"I'm sure you'll both come to an understanding," Old Man Sakaki had said. And then he'd left, dramatically rolling away in his painted carriage, with his big, glossy horses, and his sour, horse-like face. And Gintoki was left sitting alone on his rock with a random crow called Nobume perched silently on his head, claws digging sharp into his scalp.

The last thing Gintoki will ever admit, ever, is that Nobume's not the worst travelling companion he could have had. It's not even the worst crow. He's met ruder crows who have shoved sticks in his hair and air-wrestled over his head when he's trying to sleep, and worst of all, never listen to him when he tells them to go away. 

In contrast, Nobume leads him to water in deep forest and keeps watch as he sleeps. It's canny, and always seems to hear him when he calls, and even though it keeps standing on his head when he's definitely said, plenty of times before, "oi, oi, stop doing that or you'll mess up Gin-san's natural perm!" and then poking him with a very, very sharp beak, it's an alright crow. 

So Gintoki can't blame Nobume for wanting to rest. Crows aren't meant to stay up all night anyway. Black as they are, they're daylight creatures. It was a lot to ask.

"You're actually really heavy," Gintoki winces. "Get off my knee before it falls off."

Caw, says Nobume quietly. A pointed gaze. He ignores it. 

It's a little harder to ignore the growing bruise on the side of his torso, somewhere in the region of his ribs. The burns, too. 

"Hey," he says. Nobume looks up. A rustle of feathers. "Y'know," says Gintoki, trying for blithe. "A man's gotta rest, and crows too, sometimes. Don't beat yourself up about it." 

Nobume rattles lowly, something that sounds contrition. "Okay, fine," Gintoki says. "I guess there's been enough beating goin' round. Haha, geddit, geddit? You know—beating?" 

Nobume pecks him. Gintoki's yelp echoes, bouncing off the tree trunks in the dark. 

It's a shame those guys had set the hut on fire. It looks like it might rain tonight, and Gintoki isn't eager to sleep out in the rain, and neither is he eager to drag himself back to the little building he'd been sleeping in for the past few weeks. He's not sure if the ashes have stopped smouldering. Some magical fires never stop burning. He's not sure if the men—if the spellcasters have even left.

"So, you think I can crash at yours today?" Gintoki says, and the crow looks at him as if it wants to sigh. It would be pretty impressive if it did. As far as he knows, crows don't usually make those kinds of vocalisations. It's mostly "caw, caw" and a bunch of different sounding clicks, maybe a cheeky warble or two. He lets the breath leave his body and motions to stand up. 

"Come on, Nobume." 

Gintoki wraps his cloak back around his thin shoulders, tugging it up and over the cloth of his cotton shirt. He's careful not to place too much pressure on his bruise, and not to scrape the burns on his legs against the grass as he stands.

Swiftly, he reaches down and picks the crow up. 

Nobume squirms a bit in his hold, but it seems to hold a lot of guilt for sleeping through the unexpected home invasion earlier, because after a while it settles down in the crook of his elbow, its small body warm against the flesh of his arm, warm even through cloth.

"I saw a cool-looking cave yesterday," he recalls out loud. 

Click click click? says Nobume. It wiggles its head, black feathers brushing against his skin. "Of course I remember where it is! I'm great at directions, everyone knows that. I'm multi-purpose. Ask me to do anything! I can sing too, but I'm too lazy right now."

Nobume had witnessed every second of Gintoki's grand and aimless wander around the village earlier today, and it had also witnessed that moment, later that day, but earlier than now, where Gintoki had splintered his palm trying to open his own door. In Gintoki's defence, it's a really run-down building. Lots of people get hurt in run-down buildings. 

Caw, says the crow blandly. 

"Hey, no, I definitely know where we're going," Gintoki insists. "See, that's where that really big deer did a really big poop." He points at a spot behind a couple of shrubs. He squints. "I think." 

Caw, caw, says Nobume dubiously. 

"Okay, I'm sure about this one. See the rock? No, no, that one. Yeah! That's where _I_ did a really big—" Nobume pecks him, really, very hard this time. Gintoki winces and rubs at his arm, contorting his wrist a little awkwardly to reach the throbbing impact site of Nobume's displeasure. 

"You're not usually this cranky," he mutters. "You going through puberty or something? Teenage angst? Problems at home? You know you can always come and talk to me, yeah? I could have advice for you. Life advice, life directions. I'm even better at life directions than normal directions. Hey, look: here we are." 

The burns on his legs are mild, but they've been stinging a lot. He's glad to stop walking, eager to rest. 

Nobume rattles as he lets it down. 

Gintoki flourishes his arms, throwing them out to either side of him. The cloak billows in a cool and satisfying way. "And here's where we get to sleep tonight!"

The small cave is as he saw it the day before—a little lonely, its entrance covered up by hanging vines like a curtain, the night wrapped dark and velvet around it. As he steps forward, he sweeps the vines aside. Their rounded leaves are the size of Gintoki's palms, and a shade of green he can barely see. He turns around.  
  
"So, how'd you like it so f—"

He stops. Nobume's gone. 

"Huh," says Gintoki. "Damn crow. You could've said something before ditching me." 

°°°  
  


Gintoki makes his way into the cave silently, only the cloak wrapped tight around his shoulders shielding him from the wet brush of vines and damp moss. The climbers are thick on the rock walls, more than a curtain—a carpet. 

It smells like something old, and the air, colder inside than it was out in the almost-rain and the open night. It feels good on the pink burns on his shins, and like talons on his cheek, sharp claws digging like ice into flesh. 

It's too dark for Gintoki to see anything. He places a cooling hand against the frigid stone and follows the shape of the wall to a corner, where he settles himself down like a bird in a nest. Something aches in his chest, the bruise throbbing. There, he shuts his eyes.

It's still so cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been trying to keep the world-building quite coherent, but the gintama is very hard to resist, also oh noo, gin,,, baby,, don't be sad,,, everything's okay,,,
> 
> in different news, a really nice poem that inspired the atmosphere in this might be After Baudelaire by Saut Situmorang :))


	4. sweets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no proof-reading has been done at all, i have been instead just haunted with a cloudiness that insists i dedicate my soul to this for the time being!!! and, well, even though i have been quite energetic lately, i might update sporadically after, ahaha, i'm very sorry

When he wakes up, the first thing that Gintoki notices is that he isn't alone. 

"Did you sleep well?" asks the man on the other side of the cave. His gaze is unblinking.

Gintoki flicks his eyes away searchingly.

"It's just the two of us," says the man. He's sitting seiza on the grey floor, his knees tucked together and his feet hidden behind his back. His hands lie still in his lap, clasped elegantly, and Gintoki can't tell the left from the right.

It's raining outside. Storming. His side is ice-cold where it was pressed to the ground.

It is only the two of them. Outside, it is dark. The night is thick and sable. 

"We have a little more time until the sunrise," says the man quietly. He blinks and casts his eyes away from Gintoki, long hair shifting. "You should go back to sleep. The storm will fade in a few hours."

Gintoki drags himself up, ignoring the way his legs sting. He breathes shallow into the air. Presses his back to the wall, grounding himself with the jut of stone against his spine. 

" 'm not tired," he says. His nose itches. 

The wraith moves, almost imperceptibly forward. "No?" 

"Mm." 

"That's very interesting," he says. "You seem weary. Did you not sleep well?" 

"Well," replies Gintoki. "Jus' then, that was a short power nap. An energy boost, 'cause I wasn't sleeping at all. I only get tired once every three years."

He shifts, wriggling until he can pull his knees up to his chest. The man hums, and Gintoki narrows his eyes at the sound. Who's this guy to doubt him, huh? 

"I'm a strong guy," says Gintoki, ignoring the ache in his side and working hard to stop his eyes from twitching closed. "I could probably beat up a demon lord if I wanted to." 

A pause. "Do you?" says the man, "want to, that is."

"Uh. Well. Not really. But I could if I wanted to. I'd need a power nap first, but it'd be pretty easy. I'll just whack him with my sword. I bet he isn't even that strong. I dunno why everyone's scared of him." 

The man doesn't quite soften as he rambles on, but he's strangely invested in the conversation. "Perhaps he's very smart?" he offers. 

Gintoki falls silent and considers the conundrum of a smart demon lord. Maybe even a nerd. "Dammit," he says. "That's too hard. I'd be in serious trouble."

Judging by the way he tilts his head, odd and bird-like, the man doesn't think much of the way that Gintoki backtracks, but that's most likely because he's never been up against a nerd, or someone who reads books for fun, which a smart demon lord would do if they were smart. 

Gintoki huffs. "Who are you, anyway? Are you a hobo? A shut-in? Are you a shameful pervert, hidden away from the eyes of decent people to protect them from the gross horror of your presence or something?—it looks a lot like that. But hey, don't worry, old man," he nods. "That's cool with me. We can be boogers in the same nostril." 

The man blinks. "Hm." 

"Caves are the nostrils of the earth," says Gintoki wisely. "So we kind of already are."

"That's a lot of nostrils," says the man. 

"The earth has heaps of snot," says Gintoki. 

His brain lights up immediately with apprehension—things like that usually get him pecked by Nobume, and speaking of Nobume, screw Nobume, what a bastard, what a jerk, let's not speak of Nobume, actually—and his hand flies involuntarily to the lean muscle of his upper arm. 

"I see," says the man, for the second time. He locks eyes with Gintoki. 

Slowly, the neutral line of his mouth cracks open, bending into a smile. "The earth has a lot of nostrils," he says. He bends his head down, tucking his chin into his chest, smiling into it. "What a funny thing to say."

"Uh, thanks." 

"I am—" the man begins. "I am Yoshida Shoyo." His voice sounds different, softer perhaps, more gentle. He must be really fascinated by snot.

Gintoki eases out of his curl against the stony wall, loosening into a cross-legged position. He takes care not to scrape his burns.

"Gintoki," he offers back.

Shoyo leans forward, accepting the name and sounding it out, testing the syllables with his tongue. He says it with something almost like wonder, contorting his mouth around it. "Gintoki. Do you have a last name?"

"Nah. Just Gintoki." 

"A wonderful name nonetheless," Shoyo murmurs. "Gin for silver… I suppose it must be derived from your hair colour. It is really quite striking. Do you—oh?" he stops suddenly. "Might I ask who your friend is?"

Gintoki turns around. 

Rainwater is streaming over the entrance of the cave, trickling in and out of the vines. It's too early in the day for the sun to have risen, but in the formless dark, Gintoki makes out the shape of a soft, black head. Nobume's standing, a tiny shadow against the stone. 

"That's just No—" 

Gintoki scowls, cutting off in the middle of his sentence. He jerks his head away and crosses his arms. "A bastard," he mutters. 

"No?" says Shoyo. He lifts one of his slender hands off his lap, the sleeve sliding down his arm. There are shackles underneath, clamped around his wrist. 

"It's nice to meet you No-san," he says to the crow. A small wave. "You have a lovely name. Whoever gave it to you was very kind. Do you write it with the character for 'talent' and 'capacity'?" 

Caw, says Nobume. 

Shoyo turns toward Gintoki, who has never written anything in his life, and has only a very dubious idea of what characters are. "Yeah, sure," he dismisses. Nobume warbles at him. It sounds plantive and pleading. 

"Would you like to come inside, No-san?" 

Nobume cocks its head and backs away, sliding back into the rain. Water streams off its feathers, beading on the vane like dewdrops on young leaves. With a beat of its wings, the crow darts away. 

"Ah," says Shoyo. "Is she often like that?" 

"She?"

"No-san." 

Gintoki takes a moment to think. "Yeah," he says. "How'd you know it's a she?"

"Just a feeling." 

"That's cool," says Gintoki. His eyes drift down to Shoyo's wrists, returned neatly to their resting place on his folded legs. Shoyo sits a distance from him, on the opposite end of the small cave, but he stills seems to notice the shift of Gintoki's gaze. 

He sighs. Raises his hands. The shackles clink, the thin metal chain connected to them scraping on the rock.

"You're trapped."

"Imprisoned," Shoyo agrees, bending his head to nod. "I haven't been outside in a while." 

"That sucks." 

"It rather does." 

"Is it magic?" Gintoki asks bluntly. "The chains?" He squints at them, as if by staring harder he might be able to see the residue of a curse, or a restrictive spell. He hasn't before, but there's always a first time for everything. 

Shoyo hums and though he sees no residue, no faint, poisonous glow, that's all the confirmation he needs. 

"My sword could break that," says Gintoki. Shoyo blinks. Slow. Confused. 

"Sorry?" 

"My sword could break that." 

"Your sword?"

"My sword."

"Yours?"

"Yeah. My sword." 

"Your sword," Shoyo breathes out.

He looks wary, but he seems hopeful too, his eyes lighting up like a mountain sunrise. He mouths the words under his breath, wrapping his mouth around the syllables with the same delight with which Gintoki would eat a cake. 

Usually, Gintoki eats cakes like he might get caught at any moment, someone dragging him up by the back of his shirt. 

Shoyo's delight is similar—as if he expects it to be doused by rain. His fingers drum against the hard planes of his kneecaps. 

"I'll get it later," Gintoki tells him. "But 'm gonna take a power nap now. Wake me up when the storm's over." He scrunches himself back up into that tight ball, bundling up in the cloak for warmth. 

"Ah, yes," says Shoyo, smiling at him. He's still fiddling with his fingers. "Of course." 

°°°

Shoyo doesn't seem to have slept a blink, or even a wink, the next time Gintoki crawls laboriously into consciousness. 

Instead, he's kneeling, as poised as a carved figure and more sombre than that guard dog who sits in front of the noble house down in the village—his mouth is pressed into a thin line, his hands wringing each other in his lap, twisting like stoats. 

He's wide awake. It's an impressive achievement. 

"Is that so?" says Shoyo, the unmoving mask of his face creased into an amused smile. 

"Yup," says Gintoki. He yawns and rubs the sleep out of his eyes, stretching easily. It's daybreak now, and there's light creeping across the floor of the grotto, slight shadows being cast on the stone as the sun filters in through the trailing stems, around the mottled green leaves. 

Gintoki picks himself up. There are moths fluttering around the cobwebs in the corner of the cave. The air is crisp and what sun has trickled in is slowly warming, a gentle heat on the skin of his cheek. 

"If Nobume comes by," he says, bidding Shoyo farewell, "tell her she sucks. And that she's a bastard. And Gin-san's never going to buy her a donut ever again—I was so generous, Shoyo, and she treats me like this? Me? I thought we were friends, and comrades—I thought we were family _,_ and she turned her back on me, she turned her tail feathers on me, she turned tail and flew away from poor Gin-san, who raised her on his back for fifty-seven years—kids these days are so ungrateful, dammit." 

"Have a good journey," says Shoyo.

"You can be on top of my best friend list now," says Gintoki, trudging past the vines on bare feet. "The very top. The top of my best friend list gets donuts."

"Thank you," says Shoyo. "That sounds wonderful." 

  
°°°  
  


Upon gaining the title of best friend and additionally gaining the greatly coveted privilege of being the most important of all best friends, out of the many that Gintoki has collected over his long and tedious travels, Shoyo's best friend privileges consist of these: Gintoki's wonderful companionship, Gintoki's dynamic and exciting story-telling abilities, Gintoki's clever and insightful wisdoms, Gintoki's excellent, stunning, fantastic and heartfelt renditions of his favourite tavern songs, most of which aren't nearly as racy as the most racy of them, and also—bread. 

The best bread that not-having-money can not-buy. The best bread for the best friend. 

"It's not very honourable to steal," Shoyo comments idly. He watches Gintoki pad over, accepting the round, fist-sized chunk of food that he shoves ceremoniously into his hands.

"It's not good to be a shut-in," Gintoki mumbles back through his own fluffy mouthful of soft, fluffy goodness. "That's how you become a hikikomori and an embarrasment to your family." 

"I should remind you that I have no choice in my acute social withdrawal," says Shoyo. "I'm here quite involuntarily."

He splits his loaf meticulously into parts: one, two, three, four, holding the quarters of his loaf carefully in his hands, before popping them promptly into his mouth. One, two, three, four—one after another, after the other. He must have been pretty hungry to eat so quickly.

Shoyo gives off this dignified kind of aura. If he were eating at a dinner table, you know, if he wasn't chained up in a cave for whatever reason, Gintoki thinks he'd be a person who eat his food slowly, savouring the flavour on his tongue the same way he savours his words. 

"Well, duh," says Gintoki. "That's why I gotta steal my sword back. Cause you're here involun—volunta—you don't want to be here. The guys that took it didn't have honour in the first place either, so between the both of us, it cancels out."

"Hm," says Shoyo, relenting.

"I'll bring you more food while you wait," Gintoki tells him.

  
°°°  
  


There's a boy sitting on the wagon, swinging his legs. He's got a whole cob of corn in his hands that he's eaten halfway through, and his permy brown hair is even permier than Gintoki's, which is pretty amazing. It's the first time he's ever found someone with more misfortune than him, and Gintoki's almost too awed to respond.

"What're you doing?" says the boy.

He must be the youngest person here, Gintoki thinks. Most of the merchants are older men, middle-aged, with beards and grey frosting at their temples. Then the occasional younger guy, freshly married and out to prove himself as a breadwinner. 

"OooOOooOhhh~," says Gintoki, dropping the packets of dried meat in his arms. The paper wrapping crinkles loudly as it hits the ground. "You're dreaming, oOooooOhoo." He sticks his hands up on either side of his face, palms facing forward, swirling his entire upper body in a circle. "OoOoh, you never saw me~"

The boy laughs so hard he drops his corn, and the sound as it makes as it impacts the ground is dull and thudding. His laugh is really obnoxious. Gintoki eyes the corn. There's not too much dirt, and he's not grossed out by other people's spit or anything. It should be good to eat if he brushes it off.

"Ahahaha! Ahaha!" The boy wipes at the corner of his eyes, sighing loudly as he peters out of his hysteria. "You're hilarious! What's your name, ghost?"

"...Gintoki," says Gintoki.

"Ahaha, Kintoki! That's a fun name—I haven't seen you around before? Do you live here? Or nearby, maybe?"

"None of your business, dumbass," he says, scrunching his nose. 

"Well, that's mean of you. I'm Tatsuma, not dumbass. I'm pretty smart, actually." 

"Says who?"

"Says my father," says Tatsuma, who happily spouts his life story now Gintoki's paying attention to him. "That's why he took me with him. This is my first time helping him trade and stuff. Usually, I'm at school." 

"Your father must make a lot of bad decisions. He must've knocked his head somewhere. Why would anyone send someone like you to school?"

"I'm in training as a fortuner!" 

Gintoki nods along. He purses his lips, his mouth making a thin line across his face. "What's a fortuner?"

"Well, actually. I dunno."

"You're seriously stupid, aren't you," Gintoki decides. It's only been a couple minutes, and he's confident that Tatsuma's the stupidest person he's ever met. Seeing as he's met a bunch of people on the road, this means a lot. "You're not smart at all. I bet there's nothing in your head. You've knocked your brain out. I'd swear on it." 

"Oh, you're _really_ mean," the other boy laughs, harder and harder. He chortles so much that he almost chokes, and then he gets tangled up trying to take off his scarf so he doesn't choke even more, and that's when Gintoki makes his move—he crouches and springs back up, lighting fast with the packets of meat (and the corn) tucked away in his arms. 

"Ack—agh," Tatsuma splutters. "Hey! Oi! Kintoki! Hey, Kintoki, turn around, please, hey, come on!" 

For a moment, Gintoki looks back. Tatsuma waves at him, his arm flung enthusiastically in the air. "I'll see you 'round, yeah?"

  
°°°

In the midst of an impromptu poetry recital (sparked by Gintoki whining about a really big, obnoxious one in the center of town) Shoyo asks him suddenly, "Where did you sleep before?" 

"Huh?" Gintoki grunts. He peels his eyelids back open and stares up at the mossy ceiling from where he is spread-eagle on his back. "This dumb shack with tiny doors. It gave me a splinter once. Then these emo guys came and burned it down when I was trying to sleep. I dunno how they found it. I thought I was the only person who even went there."

"That sounds hard," Shoyo murmurs. His voice is low and gentle, the same voice he'd been whispering word after pretty word with. So many words, woven together like spider webs.

"Not as hard as this floor," says Gintoki. "Shoyo, you should really get this place renovated."

°°°

Since he's a very busy guy with lots of things to do on a day-to-day basis, Gintoki doesn't always go to visit Shoyo.

He's got a life outside of hanging out with the strange man trapped in the grotto in the forest, yknow? 

A whole life stretching out before him like candied honey, a long, long road, with rough carts and massive oxen with thin, slippery coats, so many corners to turn and streets to stroll down, lit up with undying flames.

He's got places to be, people to meet, patented most annoying faces to make at the students in the schoolyard who scowl at him and open their mouths as if to speak spells, or curses towards him, or just plain old crude words, and he's got a torn down, ashen hut to put back together, a weird merchant boy to weasel food from, and, and, _and—_

There are times that he can't bear to look at him, that lonesome statue in his overgrown shrine.

There are small clay sculptures in the fish pond, propped up on carved wooden pedestals, placed in the water, and the platforms look as if they might be half rotten, which is generally what happens when dead wood becomes damp. There's this old, creaking tree nearby that's growing armpit hair. 

Gintoki, the tree isn't growing a perm, is what Shoyo would say (cruelly crushing Gintoki's long-held fantasies of being surrounded by people, and trees, too, he supposes, who have worse hair than he does). It's merely lichen, using the bark as safe place to live and grow.

Shoyo says a lot of things. Shoyo would say, Gintoki, have you noticed our little friend lingering nearby? Perhaps we should invite him to join us. He seems lonely. Shoyo would say a lot of things, to a lot of people, but he can only ever speak to Gintoki.

Shoyo isn't here. So Gintoki rolls his shoulders, hiking his cloak up over his back. He shoves his hands in the water, stirs up the sediment, says, "oi, oi, oi, what are you doing you creep? What're you looking at with your creepy eyeballs, huh? I'll curse you!" 

The boy behind him steps forward. 

"I don't believe you," he says sharply. 

The fish swim in circles in the pond, round and round, their sheer fins rippling through the water like silk. Their mouths sip at the surface, sucking loudly, gaping stupidly in their stupid, scaly faces. 

"I've seen you around," the boy presses. "You show up around the school and come to my duels. You stole my father's scrolls. I don't know why—"

"I'm scouting my competition, duh," Gintoki shrugs. "You're not hot shit. I could beat you any way." 

The boy marches right up to the edge of the pond, coming close enough that Gintoki can see the hem of his fine robes out of the corner of his eye. He flicks his gaze up, ever so slightly, taking in the short, messy bangs, the heated eyes. 

"You can't even do magic, can you?" the boy says, wielding his tongue like another fang. He leans forward. "You're probably jealous, so you're sabotaging me because I have what you don't."

"No, that's completely wrong," Gintoki tells him. "I don't even know who you are. Who are you?"

"Who? _Who?"_ says the boy, very loudly and very passionately. He sounds like that one owl that hoots outside Shoyo's cave in the middle of the night, every night, like clockwork. Hoo, hoo. Some nights it's accompanied by a muffled caw. It's really annoying.

"What are you, a bird? If you're gonna come and interrupt my special Gin-san time, you should at least use your words and talk like a person. What kind of school do you go to, huh, they're seriously failing in teaching you manners. Manners are really important, don't you know?"

"As a matter of fact, I do know," says the new voice from the new boy who'd walked briskly over and wrapped a hand around his friend's mouth. His ponytail and his big, puffy white shirt are blowing around in the light breeze, drifting in the fluid air like silk. "Manners are very important, Takasugi." 

"Mmph," says Takasugi. 

"Isn't that right, Takasugi?" 

"Mmph, mrrphm," says Takasugi, squinting furiously. 

"Punctuality is another extremely important quality we should nurture as spellcasters. You should know that Takasugi."

"Yeah Takasugi," Gintoki jeers. 

Takasugi glares. His friend says, "We should be going now. We're sorry for keeping you." 

As they leave, Gintoki thinks about what Shoyo would say. Have a good journey, probably. Thank you for your consideration. I apologise for my language earlier. That sounds like something that would come out of Shoyo's mouth—the right degree of politeness, the same veneer of warmth, the neutrality underneath. 

Huh. That's something Shoyo and Takasugi's friend have in common, then. 

Takasugi glares at him as he is dragged away. Gintoki sticks out his tongue. 

As they fade into distance, he unravels from his squat, drying his wet hands on his shorts. The clay sculptures watch him with their silent, stony eyes as he stands up and wiggles his toes, whispering amongst themselves. 

Silly, silly boy, they say as he walks past. 

  
°°°

They've set up the arena again in the middle of the village, in that clear, bare plot of dirt where most important events seem to be held. 

So far, there have been overnight festivals, morning markets, childrens' games, loud, dramatic announcements, spell demonstrations (one time they had a summoner come in with his pile of rats, and that was a wild and visceral experience that Gintoki is not very interested in repeating)—and of course, the duels. 

The white circle has been drawn back into the dirt and the outskirts of it are spotted with onlookers. Comparatively, the trees nearby are sparse and shaded.

Gintoki looks up into the canopy and reaches for a branch. The bark is smooth under his palm, slippery in that strange, dusty way under the dry soles of his feet, and he nearly slips off when Tatsuma yells at him, somehow louder than the teeming crowd nearby. 

"Hey! Hey! Kintoki! Hey!" 

"Wh—shut up, idiot! Don't distract me!" Gintoki pants out. 

"You alright up there, Kintoki?" Tatsuma calls out, cupping his hands around his mouth as if Gintoki might not be able to hear him. Gintoki clings desperately to his branch and glowers down with all of the rage and fury and extremely potent and powerful wrath tingling in his every nerve, all the way from his head to his toes. 

"No!" he shouts. "You nearly killed me! I nearly died! What would you do if Gin-san fell off and died, huh? Do you know the price of a human life, you damn merchant?" 

"I think so," says Tatsuma thoughtfully. "I think it's another life. Is that right?" 

Gintoki throws a twig at him. And then another. He throws several more, and to his horror, they just keep getting stuck in the other boy's unspeakably permy hair. 

"Haha, please stop doing that Kintoki, I'm gonna get itchy and my dad will think I've picked up headlice." 

"It'd serve you right, you parasite." 

"Ahaha, no, I'm pretty sure you're the parasite here," says Tatsuma, jumping up and down in an effort to grab Gintoki's foot. There's murder in his eyes. He's murderous. Smiling, but murderous, Gintoki can tell with his murder-detector, his murder-detector has never led him astray. "Yesterday you ate basically my whole lunch!"

Tatsuma leaps up again, his fingers grazing the calloused skin on the bottom of Gintoki's heel. 

His eyes are glinting, murderously. 

"I went to get another because I was hungry, but they just called me a glutton for taking so much food," says Tatsuma, amiably, pleasantly. "It's your fault! Definitely your fau—oh, hey, they've started." 

The relief swells like a whole entire ocean in his chest as Tatsuma turns away. Sliding carefully down the side of the trunk (the side facing away from the other boy, but what does that matter, ahaha?) Gintoki edges over and sits tentatively down. Soon, his attention too is drawn to the two boys out in front, stepping silently over the white line.

"That's Takasugi Shinsuke," Tatsuma points out. "His family are well-respected as spellcasters, and he's supposed to have a lot of potential."

"Oh, yeah," Gintoki nods. "The shorty. Who's his friend?" 

"That's Katsura Kotaro." Tatsuma leans his elbows on his knees. "His family used to be seers. But since his grandmother passed away, uh, I think a few years ago? Yeah, it's just him now. It must be lonely living all by himself." 

Tatsuma points out the differences in their stances—Takasugi with the brittle curve to his mouth Katsura with the steady set of his shoulders. Privately, Gintoki thinks they are mirrors of each other, sombre face towards sombre face, eyes like matching hollows.

This time, Takasugi wins the match. He claps his hands together and his face goes deathly pale, a heavy pressure coalescing in the center of the wide circle. 

To Gintoki, it feels like hands digging under his skin and his flesh and his muscles, wrapping around his bones and pulling hard, his nervous system slipping free like an uncovered tuber, as if it is nothing more than a network of irksome roots.

Tatsuma's breathing goes faint beside him, but as the duel comes to a close, Gintoki is focused on Katsura—whose fists clench tight at his flank as he drops to his knees, trembling beneath the weight of the air, the crooked smile, his ponytail fraying, undoing against his back. 

  
°°°

Gintoki goes back to the ramshackle hut for the first time after the fire, perhaps a few weeks after he meets Tatsuma. 

He does so on the day he's supposed to meet him out in the grazing fields so the other boy can smuggle him food for Shoyo (not that Tatsuma knows—but, well, maybe he does. He is actually pretty smart. Canny in an uncomfortable way. For such an idiot, Tatsuma's such an unsettling guy.)

The aged wooden walls have been scorched into ash, the debris scattered across the tiny, stone brick floor, shades of white and grey and black all smeared into the edges, each and every nook and cranny. The roof is gone; someone must have cast a wind-spell to tear off the roof. 

The statue that Gintoki had kept in the corner has been smashed, pale, grainy shards of rock mingling with the charcoal flakes. 

They'd been very angry that night. Gintoki supposes they might have thought him a demon to banish. Kicking at the door, wrenched off its hinges and sprawled on the ground, its splintered wooden lattice, Gintoki scoffs. 

He hears the familiar beats of Nobume's wings nearby, alighting in the bright canopy. He glances up only once.

  
°°°

One evening, as Gintoki lies bundled up in banyan roots, watching the broadleaves turn red-orange-yellow-warm above him, he sees Katsura traipsing unsteadily through the undergrowth, kicking up the leaf-litter and tripping over rocks. His hand is glowing with a faint light, not nearly as bright as his battle spells but brighter than the crescent moon.

He's weighed himself down with a myriad of pockets, and a large, bulky basket that fits oddly in his young arms. 

Gintoki cranes his head, trying to see inside. He scrunches his nose at the messy green clumps and wadded leaves sticking out of the basket, and considers telling Katsura how immensely gross those particular plants were to eat, but by the time he clambers out of that makeshift cradle in the ground, the other boy is gone.

Well, not quite gone. Gintoki can still hear his footsteps. He can still follow the light through the trees.

He's close, close enough that Gintoki could catch up and place a wise, comforting hand on his shoulders, tell him solemnly, "hey, pretty boy, if you eat that root you're going to give yourself indigestion for two days and your friend-rival Takasugi—that guy—he'll end up winning all your magic duels and where're you gonna be then? Come, listen to Gin-san, he'll tell you everything he knows," and Gintoki's the generous kind who'd do that for free (and free food) but something stops him. 

He thinks about ash on grass. Charcoal. 

When he climbs back out of his thoughts, Katsura is long-gone and the forest is dark around. 

  
  
°°°

"Why is it that you will not forgive No-san?" Shoyo muses aloud. 

Gintoki picks the dirt out from under his nails. "Who's No-san? I dunno any No-san. Never heard of that name in my life." 

"Hm," says Shoyo, contemplatively. "I would have called her your friend, but you both seem to be having a disagreement. Perhaps she is only a bother to you now." 

Sometimes in the trees outside, there is a dark shape that perches until morning. It says, click, click, click when Gintoki crawls past the vines, and then glides away into the shadows of the leaves.

"...we're still friends," Gintoki says. Then he hunches his shoulders and curls up on his side, thinking hard about sweets and chocolates and delicious desserts until the beginning of a dream starts to form. 

  
°°°

"So why can't you leave?" Gintoki asks. 

He sweeps the vines to the side, the climbers gathered in his arm and the wet feeling of them lingering long after he has brushed them away, let the curtain fall back into place. His footsteps echo like rainwater on stone.

Shoyo meets his gaze squarely, 

"I know you probably have performance anxiety since you've been here so long, but you really shouldn't stress yourself out," says Gintoki, coming to a stop in front of him and easing onto his knees. "Anything that you do, that bastard Takasugi's definitely done worse."

Today, Gintoki brings sun-fresh figs that are sweeter than they are rotting, and the good news that his sword is still in the village. Shoyo holds the fruit in his palm. Rubs his thumb against the skin until the cloudiness squeaks off. He lifts it to his mouth to take a bite, licking away the juice. 

He is wraithlike again, and his hand feels cold as Gintoki grazes against it. As Shoyo eats, Gintoki undoes the small buttons nestled above the hollow of his collarbone, his fingertips running over the worn thread from where he'd torn the hood off. It's sucked not having something to cover his head anymore, but he's pretty sure that cat liked it, so it's alright, really.

Gintoki stands up and makes to move slowly behind him and Shoyo doesn't make to shift away. For the first time, he shows his back, his feet tucked beneath him as he sits.

Gintoki lays the cloak across the bony shoulders. He's a little sloppy about it, and Shoyo's long hair gets caught under the thick fabric. The man exhales, so very soft. 

"It doesn't hurt," he says, rubbing the pads of his fingers over his half-eaten fig. "I've been numb for a very long time."

"I'll pull them out for you," says Gintoki. He looks at the stakes embedded through the soles of Shoyo's feet, pinning him to the ground. He thinks about the moths cocooned in silk on the walls of the cave.

There is a twig of a smile in Shoyo's voice. He leans his head back, strands of hair fluttering like dead grass in the wind. If Gintoki were to step just a short breath closer, Shoyo's temple would come to rest on the hard bone of his sternum, or the warm give of his arm. 

"I would bleed out, I think. But thank you, Gintoki, for the offer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i regret to say that i don't know what's happening anymore, ahaha, but also, ah, sakamoto was not invited to this party!!!! not at all!! he just joined in!! he just felt left out!!


End file.
